I had a exam by a famous surgeon,P. Lange (Prostate Cancer for
Dummies), recently because I have advanced PC. My thinking was that he
will operate if you're advanced and want to take the so-called
"aggressive" route (in other words, if there is no scientific evidence
whatsoever that this surgery will cure you or prolong your life, he
will still do it in many cases as a clinical study). He wouldn't do me
though: but this might have been because I had another oncologist
there who talked him out of it. I'm not sure what went on between
them. After that I talked to a radiation oncologist who wanted me to
take the radiation every day for a couple of months followed by a
trial of two different chemo treatments plus hormone therapy. This too
was a radiation treatment protocol with no scientific evidence
whatsoever that it would cure me nor prolong my life one day--another
clinical trial for people with Gleason >8. On the advice of two other
oncologists I decided not to go with the radiation either. Yet, I
could "revisit" these options later, I'm thinking. These two terms:
"aggressive" and "revisit" are common metaphors.
As Susan Sontag once wrote, you can't ever let metaphors get in way
of getting the treatment you need (forget about metaphors like "AMA
millionaires" "The Medical/Insurance Establishment" and so forth. I
think it was because I was thinking along the lines of military
metaphors "The fight" which suggests taking any piece of it you can or
doing anything aggressive you have the opportunity to do. You know
what I mean? And not to care if it hits you back! But then I thought
maybe I was letting the metaphors go too far.
So now I'm more into the QoL, the quality of life, metaphor. I've been
reading Romeo and Juliet, a play Hegel thought was the greatest human
artistic accomplishment ever created. It is a pretty good little book,
so far, although "Never was there a tale of more woe than this of
Juliet and her Romeo." Metaphorically speaking, those two lovers had
a good life. I'm thinking, because they loved intensely and then went
out (They only know each other for 4 days) it was worth it. And Plato
said that a long life is not better than a short life, so I've come to
accept my mortality. So, QoL is not about trying to see how long one
can live no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifices, no matter the
odds, and whatever the wasted time under the militant metaphor of the
fight. Maybe I don't care to join a clinical study to hurt me, to kill
me perhaps, to advance the future hopes of oncology to cure people?
Yet, this too could be revisited: I still have my metaphors open
especially to changing situations.
I'm so interested to kinaise receptors, for example, that I might want
to bet my life on a targeted therapy with that "arm" (such a metaphor)
of a clinical trial.
The Quality of Life Metaphor 
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